And the reason that you want to do this is because I'm participating in the HUGE January edition of the Blogtrain Blog. It goes live on January 1, and has over 100 designers from around the world participating.

Friday, December 24, 2010

My dear, sweet Creative Lady, Irma, has made one of her layouts into a quickpage for you to enjoy. Isn't this a fun and happy page? Be sure to stop over at her blog and say "thank you"! Here's your link to go get it.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

So, I'm madly trying to finish wrapping gifts to get them under the tree -- and I've run out of gift tags! So I made a set of gift tags -- and I thought I might not be the only one who needs some more! They were made from several of my kits, and are laid out to fit on 8.5x11 inch paper. So here they are, hope you enjoy them!

Saturday, December 18, 2010

My store is on SALE for 25% off until Dec 31. I don't do this very often, so now is your chance to find something just for you for Christmas!

And I've just released my new kit, Dear Santa. I was inspired by my grand daughter writing her letter to Santa about the things she wanted to get for Christmas. She gathered her markers and cut little pictures from sales ads. So the kit is full of handmade elements that a child might have created for the tree or to leave when Santa comes!

Leave me a comment here about a favorite childhood memory for a chance to win, and Mr Random will select someone on Christmas Eve (my time). You can double your chances by posting a comment HERE as well.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Yes! I wrote my letter -- but in a different sort of way! This is a fun little kit for Christmas and holiday photos. I was inspired by my grand daughter writing her letter to Santa. She spent a great deal of time looking through sale ads and magazines, carefully cutting out pictures of the toys she wanted -- it was just so cute! And she wrote Dear Santa for me, which I scanned for the kit.

It's all ready for you with 10 papers and 43 unique elements. Just take a look at what my talented Creative Ladies have done with it!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Have you written your letter to Santa yet? Maybe it's several things, or even just one. Do you remember the days of looking through the catalogs and magazines and sales ads, and cutting out the pictures so you could leave hints to Mom and Dad? Or a hint for hubby, maybe? I'm finishing up a kit that will bring those memories to life.

Now on to the fun! If you look in my previous post, you 'll see the words Merry Christmas. That's actually done in a combination of her Christmas Stars and Christmas Shine. I use Photoshop CS5, and will show you some screenshots as we go along. Ready?

Start with a transparent layer 12x12 inches at 300 dpi. Select your font (I'm using Tabitha) and type your words -- be sure to choose a font that has a bit of chunkiness to it. If it's not quite thick enough, try making it bold using the type palette on the character tab. I didn't use the same color in both sets of styles. Starting at the bottom and working up to the top layer:

1. Bottom layer is Shine "like a bow" at 20%
2. Layer 2 is Stars "like a bow," pattern scale is 25% and 100% opacity
3. Layer 3 is Stars "like a bow" at 67% opacity
4. Layer 4 is Stars "portly" at 67% opacity (yes, I used the slightly darker red color)
5. Top layer is Shine "like a bow" at 50% opacity (if this layer is more opaque there is more of a wet look but you lose the stars underneath. If you lower the opacity more you lose the look of the shine but you can see the stars better)

Here's the screenshot of the words at 100%. You can also see the type palette, circled in yellow, and my layers are labeled for you.

And here are the finished words you can see in the screenshot above. In the sample in my previous post, I used the color "portly" in both sets of styles.

PART TWO -- PLAIDS

Next we're going to use her delicious Christmas Stripes and make plaids!

In very basic terms, you start with a striped paper, duplicate it, turn it 90 degrees, and then reduce the opacity of the top layer -- it's magic!

1. Start with a 12x12 white layer on the bottom, click on whatever color stripe you would like.

2. Add another white layer and place your second stripe color. Place a transparent layer on top of this stripe layer, select both and merge, control-E.

Below, you can see my layers, bottom and top ones have the stripes applied but their effects are dangling, so you can't see them yet. (There's a reason for adding and merging the transparent layer -- you can't manipulate the stripe layer unless you do this. For instance, if as you're working you decide the color has faded and you need to adjust the saturation, it can't be done on the layer with it's effects hanging out -- it has to be a rasterized layer to do that. And you certainly can't do the step below if it's not merged! Go ahead and try to rotate the top layer without merging, you know you want to)

Did you see what happened when you tried to rotate the layer when it wasn't merged with the stripe layer? The layer rotated all right, but the stripes didn't!
Now you can see what happens with the two layers merged -- the stripes appear in the layers palette.

Now I'll add the transparent layer above my top layer and merge and we'll go on to the next step.

3. Go to edit > transform > rotate 90 degrees, then reduce the opacity on this layer to between 42-50% -- your plaid magically appears! So here it is, the gorgeous plaid, and you can see the the stripes and rotation in the layers palette. This has made a wonderful, very even regular plaid.

But what if I like an irregular plaid?

If you're still in the same file, you have two choices right now to do it.
1. The easiest way to do it from the point above is to click on the color layer you want to "stretch out," hold down the shift key to keep it in proportion, and drag the corner out till you're happy with the scale. -or-
2. Undo till you get to the point where you have one stripe layer and the transparent layer unmerged. Double click on the words pattern overlay in the list of effects for that layer, and when the box comes up change the scale to whatever looks good to you (I used 400%). Then merge the stripe and its transparent layer.

Can you see the difference in the scale now between the purple and the turquoise layers?

Now what if you want a different background color instead of the white in the pattern overlay? Ready to have a little more fun?

1. Turn off the visibility of one layer and then zoom way in. Make sure each layer is back to 100% opacity.
2. Take your magic wand tool and click on the white background. Marching ants will appear around those white stripes. Click backspace and they disappear. Zoom way in to have a look -- you might have to do it again with a tiny stripe next to a color stripe if the magic wand didn't get it. The blue arrow is pointing to what was missed. Turn the other layer back on, and repeat this process.

Add a layer at the very bottom, I selected a fill of a light yellow in this sample. Add a yummy texture of some sort and you have an awesome plaid!

Wasn't that fun?? By using the different colors and scaling each layer, you can have an endless variety of plaids -- with white backgrounds, and now with colored backgrounds!

Well actually she has made lots of them, and I have a bunch of them. Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the great privilege of playing with her collection of Christmas styles. They are brand new, come in 30 ( ! ) colors, a wonderful variety to play with on your pages -- and best of all they are ok for commercial use! (Be sure to read through her terms of use.)

Aren't they gorgeous? I made the "Merry Christmas" using both the Stars and the Shine styles. The Stars have some texture, little stars and a bit of music in the pattern. The Shine styles are really not like the glass or epoxy or acrylic styles you have used or seen. They have a wonderful, rich depth of color. I told Jodiann that this shade of red reminded me of the cherry jelly I made this summer.

And now how about these stripes? They are great as they are, but I made plaids with them!

So -- do you want to know how I did it? Come back for a little tutorial.

And it's on sale till December 10 exclusively at Digidesignresort !! Really soft shades of blue, lavender and gray, a bit of lace, snowflakes and lots of other goodies! It's perfect for non-traditionally colored Christmas pages or anything for winter. Snow is Falling was made with the same palette as the rest of our December Mix and Match pieces, so you can add to this kit with anything else in that collection.

About Me

Married a long time :-), mom of 2 grown children who are married, Nana to 2 girls, a Christian, loving life and adoring my family, designing, photography, and all things digital! You can contact me at:
janetbdesigns (at) gmail . com